Petrified Forest Shrinks, One Stolen Piece at a Time

Published: November 28, 1999

PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK, Ariz., Nov. 27—
Chuck Dorn has seen almost every technique there is for swiping petrified wood -- some sly, most not.

In seven years as a ranger at Petrified Forest National Park, Mr. Dorn has seen people hide the wood under handkerchiefs, in white foam cups and in their pants.

So many visitors are stealing these souvenirs that one study has estimated that 12 tons of wood vanish from the national park every year. ''The baseball, softball-sized ones get collected up pretty quick in sites where there's a lot of visitors,'' Mr. Dorn said. But even the larger pieces are not immune. Visitors sometimes walk behind hills, where ''they get the confidence that they can get in there and hack a piece off.''

In places like the Crystal Forest, a popular visitor spot in the park, only large chunks of the tan, purplish and pink petrified wood remain. Piece by piece, visitors have taken all the smaller nuggets, leaving barren patches among the larger pieces, which are 225 million years old.

David Barna, a spokesman for the National Park Service in Washington, said that nationwide, items from Civil War relics to Indian artifacts were disappearing from parks.

No theft statistics are kept, he said, ''but there's a general feeling out there that it's up.''

While a few preliminary studies have been done, Greg Caffey, the assistant chief ranger, said Petrified Forest officials were unsure exactly how much wood was being carted out in pockets and car cup holders. They are convinced it is quite a bit.

In the summer, park rangers find 100 pounds of wood each month that visitors have thrown out as they approach brown signs warning them that their cars can be searched. In September alone, 25 pounds of rocks were mailed back by people with guilty consciences.

Most are relatively small and come back with apologetic notes, Mr. Dorn said, though there was one that weighed as much as 250 pounds.

Some notes suggest the purloined wood caused bad luck.

In a letter dated July 20, 1984, a man linked a wrecked car and the departure of his wife to the theft.

''Superstitious, I wasn't,'' the letter reads. ''However, I cannot explain all the bad luck that has happened. I just don't need it anymore.''

But even pieces that are recovered cannot go back to the park grounds. Because it is almost impossible to know what part of the park a piece came from, the wood can disrupt scientific research if it is dropped in the wrong spot, Mr. Dorn said.

The wood has its origins in a volcanic eruption that researchers believe knocked down trees and washed them into low-lying areas, where they became water-logged and sank. The volcanic ash turned to silica in the water and was absorbed into the cells of the trees, turning to quartz.